1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an improved method for outbound telephone call pacing, and more particularly to a call pacing method that controls the rate at which calls are dialed to optimize agent utilization while maintaining the percentage of answered calls for which there is no available agent (so-called abandoned calls or nuisance calls) below a set maximum limit.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Call origination management systems automatically dial clients, listen for the call result (i.e. ringing, busy signal, answer, no answer, etc.), and when a call results in an answer, automatically transfer the call to an available agent. Such systems are in general use today by a variety of businesses, groups and organizations.
FIG. 1 shows a system overview of a typical system in use today. A system typically includes a call manager CPU 11, a call processor 13, and a memory such as a hard disk storage 15. A plurality of outbound telephone trunks 19 are connected to the call processor 13. A plurality of voice and data agent stations 21 are also connected to the system. The number M of these voice and data agent stations may be, for example, 24 for the case where the number of telephone lines is 48. In other words, the number M of the voice and data agent stations is less than the number of telephone trunks. This allows the system unit to dial calls while all operators are busy talking to clients.
As illustrated in FIG. 1, each of the voice and data terminal stations comprises a combination video display terminal (VDT) and keyboard, and a telephone headset and microphone. As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, prior art call manager systems, such as those commercially available from applicant's assignee and others, include routines for gathering, manipulating and storing data relating to each call in a campaign. This data includes call duration data, after-call work duration, and call answer to dial call data.
The first step in beginning a calling campaign is to obtain the calling data, typically via tapes, disks, or through a communication link to a host computer. The data is input, and the system then organizes the data into the records for the campaign. When the campaign is started, the data is loaded into the "input call list." The system then preloads a dialing queue with a certain number of records from the calling data. As the dialing process begins, the system controls the number of calls being made at any one time based on the number of operators that are available to receive calls and the maximum allowable abandon call rate. An abandon call is a call that has been dialed, answered, but for which there is no available agent to respond to the answering party. These abandon calls are also referred to in the art as nuisance calls. The abandon call rate as used herein is the ratio of abandon calls to answered calls expressed as a percentage. The maximum abandon call rate is a rate which the system supervisor can select, usually in a range between 1% and 15%.
When a connection is established to a client, the system routes the call to an available agent and displays the client's record on the agent's screen. The agent is now ready to make a presentation to the client and record information from the transaction. Once the agent completes the call and any after-call work, the system then makes the agent station available for another call.
The system validates the client's record in an output call list, and, depending on the outcome of the call, separates the record in the corresponding output file. For example, if the particular person to be contacted is not at home, the operator may press a key telling the system to place the client's record into the call-back file. When, for example, a call results in a future follow-up call, the agent presses another key to immediately print information of the transaction on a printer.
Records which require no further action (i.e. a sale is made, wrong number, etc.), are marked complete and are not put into the call-back file but instead are put in a sale file.
The goal of any call origination management system is to have each agent connected to each call answered without having the agent wait between calls or the called party having to wait for an agent after he or she answers. Under ideal conditions, there would be maximum talk time and no abandon calls, so-called nuisance calls. To accomplish this, however, requires a prior knowledge of the time it takes to connect a call and exactly how long each operator talks. In practice, both of these can be highly variable, within limits. The system cannot predict exactly when or if a placed call will result in an answer and, of course, the amount of time an operator talks will depend on the responses of the client. Therefore, scheduling the next answered call to occur exactly when an operator finishes talking, is impossible. An answer may occur before or after the operator finishes the previous call, and the result is an increase in the abandon call rate or an increase in operator idle time, or both. Intuitively, it is clear that the system variables which affect talk time are the ratio of answered calls to the number of call attempts per session (A.sub.ratio) and the average time an agent is busy per call in the session (CON.sub.time). The system goal is a maximum talk time per agent with abandon calls kept below a preset level.
There are a number of call pacing methods in present commercial use. In general, these prior pacing methods attempt to predict when an agent will be available to respond to an answered call, and dial sufficient calls so that there will be an answered call for every available agent with a minimum time between the end of one call and the beginning of the next. The performance of these prior art pacing methods is generally satisfactory in a specific calling environment for which they are targeted and when operating with large number of agents and a high acceptable percentage of abandon calls. Their performance drops when used outside their targeted environment and when used with a small number of agents and/or a low acceptable percentage of nuisance calls.